the groundhog day project

There's a really basic take on Stand By Me --it's about four boys growing up in the face of their own mortality--and there's plenty to explore just there. But, I kinda like the more specific thing regarding explicitly Gordie but also to increasingly lesser degrees--again, because this is Gordie 's story--Chris, Teddy, and Vern. That thing is an old standby in this blog--identity. Vern's is simple. He's the timid one, clearly still more of a kid than the other three. Just look at him saying "Geronimo" when he jumps off the train tracks when Teddy goes for the dodge. But, Vern has to at least gotta grow up a little by the end. Teddy, despite how horrible his father has been to him, still idolizes his father and clearly wants to be like him. His father stormed the beaches at Normandy. Teddy dressed in military colors, wears what is probably his father's army belt and surely those are his father's dog tags around his neck, and he makes a thin...

Clint Eastwood once again (directing as well as starring)-- The Outlaw Josey Wales . By the time the opening credits come to Eastwood's director credit, we've seen the titular Josey's wife and son murdered by Union soldiers and Josey join up with Confederate guerrillas. We've seen more war footage already than in the entire Civil War section of How the West Was Won , and just barely over ten minutes in, the guerrillas are surrendering. But, not Josey. He stays right where he is and says, "This isn't what happened last week! Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us! This isn't fair! He didn't get out of the cock-a-doodie car!" Sorry, wrong film. More like, they just cheated us, we lost the war and have to be one country again. The cheating follows, actually--the massacre of the surrendered guerrillas... And, the Western hinges on the Civil War once again. And, it's a sore subject in this country in the present. As Josey tells Lone Wa...